| Summary: | In the 21st century, the refugees' situation is one of the key problematic issues in the international community, which not only affects the security and stability of border areas but also has a profound impact on neighboring countries and even the international community. In late August 2017, a new round of the Rohingya crisis broke out, and the "Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army" (ARSA) launched a series of attacks on Myanmar, resulting in a large-scale bloody conflict between the Rohingya and Rakhine. The outbreak of this incident led to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people across the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, fleeing to Cox's Bazar region of Bangladesh. The influx of refugees over a brief period of time brought excessive pressure to poor Bangladesh. The long-standing Rohingya refugee problem gradually evolved from Myanmar's domestic contradictions to the international community's intense issues. Based on the dynamic monitoring data of the UNHCR, this study analyzes the population scale and structure of Rohingya refugees on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border and its impact on regional geopolitical relations from January 2018 to September 2020 from the perspective of demographic geography and political geography. Given this background, this research shows : 1) Rohingya refugees in Palong Khali district on the Myanmar-Bangladesh borders are large and growing. There are more female refugees than men; the age structure of Rohingya refugees tends to be low, the main age is under 18 years old, and the proportion of young and middle-aged refugees in the total population is minor and grows rapidly; spatial structure shows a typical "law of distance decay from Myanmar-Bangladesh border,"that is, the refugee camps expand to the west, and the scale of refugees presents a spatial distribution law of decreasing from east to west. 2) The population scale and structure of Rohingya refugees have a significant impact on regional geopolitical relations. First, it has a profound affect on the democratization process of Myanmar; second, it poses a challenges to Myanmar-Bangladesh border security, which leads to tensions in Myanmar-Bangladesh relations; third, it arouses the intervention and attention of many geo-actors. This led to a geopolitical game surrounding the refugee issue, leading to divisions within ASEAN, as well as geopolitical spillover effects. 3) Compared with some western countries and international organizations, the "three-step" solution proposed by China is in line with the actual situation of Myanmar and Bangladesh. Under the mechanism of the China–Myanmar–Bangladesh Joint Working Group, the Rohingya refugee issue is moving toward cooperation and consultation. The study of the demographic characteristics of Rohingya refugees on the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh and their influence on regional geopolitical relations provides a reference for the solution of this complex issue.
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